This Wasn't Supposed to Happen
by CutieCumberCookie
Summary: "I'm so sorry... this wasn't supposed to happen... I-I didn't want this to happen..." Phoebus/Clopin, AU. Warning: Character Death.


**A/N: My OTP for this fandom is Phoebus/Clopin. I can't help myself. I love Clopin and I love slash, and besides: Quasi and Esme go better together while these two go together well. X3**

**Anyway... Yup, this is an AU of the movie, but not completely... like... it's different from the movie. Clopin and Phoebus have been together for two years. How Clopin gets captured is entirely up to interpretation.**

**Yeah... this might be the saddest thing I've written. Longest thing I've sure written in a while, that's for sure! This came from inspitation after seeing Catching Fire, mainly from two scenes: Cinna being beaten and dragged off and Katniss finding out Peeta's in the Capitol. Oh, spoilers! My bad. XD But yeah. I feel like the President Snow and Katniss dialogue... or how they view each other... it's very much like Frollo and Clopin: Frollo threatening Clopin's people and Clopin doing whatever he can to protect his people. And Phoebus is so much like Peeta it's not even funny... so... yeah.**

**Please (nicely) review if you liked this :D**

* * *

**...**

**This Wasn't Supposed to Happen**

**...**

"Tell me where they are."

_They might as well tear my teeth out now, because I'm not talking. _

To prove his point, Clopin stayed silent.

A searing pain erupted and stars flashed before his eyes as another hard blow came to his face. He coughed, some blood dripping from his mouth and falling onto the cold stone floor beneath his bare feet. He knew he wouldn't be able to go on any further... he'd already been whipped and burned and beaten and tortured in every other way possible... Now it was just a waiting game.

Now he was waiting to die. Frollo and his men had already done just about everything to get information out of him. Surely there would be nothing left for them to do to him except kill him. They'd kill him, and his people would be safe. Esmeralda, his dear little Esme, no longer little but a beautiful grown woman... she'd be safe. All the gypsy families living in the Court of Miracles, all of which knew and trusted him... they'd all be safe.

_That's all that matters._

He didn't have to worry about Phoebus, his partner. They'd been good at keeping their relationship a secret, and had done so without incident for about two years. No... he didn't have to worry about Phoebus because he was sure that Frollo knew nothing of their relationship.

_I know he'll miss me, but... hopefully he'll be okay without me._

Most men would not be so ready to die. Most would be begging for mercy and begging to live... Then again... most men weren't kings. As the gypsy king, his main duty was to protect his people, no matter the cost. No matter the pain he endured, no matter the risk to his life involved. He would go through Hell and back for his people, and die need be.

He was ready to die, and he was sure Frollo knew that as well.

A cold, clammy hand grasped his throat tightly, forcing his head upwards to meet Claude Frollo's hard glare.

"Where is the Court of Miracles?"

Clopin kept his steely gaze on the Judge, the metallic taste of blood in his mouth. "Go to Hell," he spat. It had been one of the first things he had said in the past few days. He had refused to even speak to Frollo, to even give him that satisfaction. But this had been different. If he was going to day, he wanted Frollo to know what was coming for him in the next life. In a way it was his last act of defiance against his tyranny over Paris and the gypsies who roamed there.

Frollo gave a smile that would chill any man to the bone. It didn't phase Clopin one bit; he knew what was coming. "Very well." He released his hold on the gypsy's neck and took a step back. "You will only make this more difficult for yourself."

"You can't hurt me anymore," Clopin snapped. "So you can just kill me now."

Frollo's smile didn't falter. "Oh no... You _will_ talk. And I know _exactly_ what will make you start talking." He looked over his shoulder at the other soldiers in the cell. "Bring him in."

Clopin was confused greatly by this. He figured that someone—a male gypsy, he could only guess—that he knew would be brought in. He wasn't sure how, or why, or who it could possibly be. _Who...?_

The man Frollo had been referring too was brought in shackles by two guards on each side of him, head hanging low, with white skin and blonde hair.

Clopin froze when Phoebus slowly lifted his head to meet his shocked gaze. Never in his entire life had his heart so painfully dropped into the pit of his stomach with fear as it did in that very moment.

"No..." the gypsy croaked out in horror. _Phoebus..._

Frollo's sickening smile grew wider at the sight of Clopin's horrified expression. "Ah, I see you recognize my former Captain of the Guard..."

"Clopin," Phoebus murmured weakly, and it was then that Clopin noticed that his lover had similar wounds decorating his body.

"Phoebus..." Clopin's voice cracked painfully, and it was then Frollo knew he had found his other weakness besides his own people and Esmeralda. The gypsy's dark eyes met Frollo's menacing ones. "Please... please don't hurt him..."

Frollo chuckled darkly. "Clopin Trouillefou, the unbreakable gypsy king, is actually _begging_? Do my ears deceive me?" To make Clopin's growing fear even more intense, Frollo moved closer towards Phoebus. "You don't think I know about you two?"

Clopin just shook his head frantically. "No... _no_..." His eyes went even wider when he noticed Frollo reaching for a small dagger on one of the guard's sides.

"You love him," Frollo pointed out, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "That, in turn, makes him your other weakness."

Clopin was shaking now, while Phoebus didn't even seem to notice or care about what Frollo was holding in his hand. "Kill me instead," Clopin said quickly, as if in his own attempt to save Phoebus. "I'm right here and I have nothing left to give! If you just kill me—"

"Kill you?" Frollo grinned, twisting the dagger around in his spider-like fingers. "That would be far too easy. I've already done everything I could think of to break you... you've yet to tell me the location of the gypsies."

Clopin opened his mouth, as if ready to spill out the information Frollo had desperately sought after for as long as he could remember.

"Don't tell him!" Phoebus shouted suddenly. "We both know he'll still kill me even if you tell him."

Just hearing the man he loved admitting that his fate was inevitable was enough to bring tears to his eyes. "Just kill me instead," Clopin whispered, hanging his head. "Just kill me... please..."

Frollo raised an eyebrow. "Is that your final answer?"

Breathing heavily, his heart thudding painfully in his chest, Clopin locked eyes with Phoebus again. The younger man simply nodded, and mouthed the words _'I love you'._

Clopin couldn't even mouth the words back. He was too scared to do anything but stare at him.

Frollo stepped behind Phoebus now. "One more chance, gypsy. Tell me where the Court of Miracles is."

Phoebus shook his head at this, keeping his eyes locked with Clopin's dark ones. Clopin nodded at him. "I won't," the gypsy promised him. "I won't tell him..."

Frollo smirked, slowly lifting his arm up. "Very well."

Clopin pulled against the chains that held his arms against the wall, feeling a heavy sense of hopelessness flooding him. "Just kill me instead!" He pleaded, watching as Frollo lifted the dagger to Phoebus' neck. "Don't—!"

A single swipe was all it took, and a red line formed quickly on the white flesh of Phoebus' neck.

"_No!"_ Clopin screamed, pulling hard against the chains now until they painfully tugged tightly against his wrists. He didn't care about the pain. Not now. It felt as if his entire world had fallen apart. "No! **PHOEBUS!"**

He watched his partner fall to a heap on the floor, white prison attire stained bright crimson from the wound at his neck.

Clopin struggled harder against his bonds, tears he'd been fighting to hold back falling freely down his face as he screamed. He screamed blindly, frantically, as if his life depended on it. He screamed so loudly he was sure God must have heard him from the highest of Heavens.

Frollo stood over the body, blood-stained dagger in hand. He let out an amused hum as Clopin hysterically sobbed. "Such a pity. He threw away a promising career." He turned toward the other guards in the room. "I think our job has been done here." He already started to walk out of the cell, the guards following closely behind him. "Let the gypsy rot away with his dead lover."

The cell door slammed shut.

Clopin hung limply against the chains, hard, aching sobs wracking his body. Try as he might, he couldn't stop staring at Phoebus, as if expecting him to sit up and reassure him that he was okay. In some small form of denial that came with his state of shock and agony, he hoped that maybe this wasn't real. This _couldn't_ be real. Phoebus couldn't really be dead. Not him. Clopin needed him.

"I never meant for you to get hurt," he sobbed, finally looking away from the body and hanging his head. His head was pounding with the force of his cries. He hadn't cried in years, not even when Phoebus was there to comfort him. He always refused to show any signs of weakness, but now... _now_ here he was feeling like he was dying from the sheer force of the pain in his chest that came with each sob. "I'm so sorry... this wasn't supposed to happen... I-I didn't want this to happen... I didn't..."

He got no response. It only made it harder for Clopin to realize that this _was_ real; that Phoebus was really _dead_. He'd seen him die, but it hadn't really register until now.

Despite all the torture he'd endured in his life, Clopin always assumed he was invincible in some way, that no matter what Claude Frollo did, he would never tell him the location of the Court of Miracles, when really... Frollo had always intended to _break_ him. Not to break him for information, but to break his spirit. The very thing that kept him sane. And really... there was only one person who could keep him sane. And that person was gone now.

Frollo's plan finally worked: the gypsy king had been broken. 


End file.
